


Thawing Our Hearts

by theowletqueen (nerdqueenenterprise)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 02:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7340566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdqueenenterprise/pseuds/theowletqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky are idiots, and T'Challa does what needs to be done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thawing Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks for The_Nerdling_Queen, who beta'ed this and supplied a summary AND a title (Ily Ryn <3)

    “But… Why?”

    “Steve, I'm a danger to everyone out there. You … you've seen what I can do, what happens if someone says the words. I can't live with that.”

    “You could be deconditioned, we could make that work.”

Bucky gives a sad smile. “No, Steve. There isn't… I  _ can't  _ be deconditioned, not like - not with things the way they are.”

    “Why?”

    “I can't explain it to you, Steve, I just can't.”

It's not like Steve doesn't  _ understand  _ Bucky’s choice, but he doesn't think he can let go, doesn't think he could stand life knowing that his best friend is lying frozen in a tube in fear of being brainwashed again when he's so sure he could do something.

T’Challa is leaning against the wall a few feet away from the cot Bucky is sitting on, his expression as unreadable as ever. If Steve’s honest, the king is still too much of a wild card for him to be at least at ease with letting Bucky stay in his facility, but it's not like they have many options at the moment, being at large with most governments and secret services after them.

    “Steve, this is my decision. If there is nothing else I have control over, please let me at least have this. Let me choose what to do with my life. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to fight anymore. I don't - I just want to be done. And the - the way I  _ think  _ I could be deconditioned… That's not going to happen, because it's never going to happen but you don't, you don't understand, you can't understand and I don't blame you. Just … let me go, alright? This is my end of the line, Stevie.”

There's nothing Steve can say here to change Bucky's mind, nothing that comes to mind to even lessen how much that hurts, losing him again after such a short time together where it seemed like everything would somehow, someway, work out in the end.

    “Captain Rogers,” the doctor, who's been quiet so far, cuts through the silence, firmly pushing Steve away, allowing him to break eye contact with Bucky which feels like he's already losing him. “If I may ask you and his Royal Highness to leave us for a moment.” Her tone doesn't allow disagreement, and Steve knows that T’Challa holds her in very high regard, so he leaves the room with the king, moving over to the huge glass window opposite the entrance to the medical wing. There's a thunderstorm raging in the Wakandan rainforest, but he feels oddly detached. If, if Bucky's gone… Steve isn't sure how much of him would be left, what he would even stay for. He can't go back to America, to the Avengers, to  _ Tony _ who he'd indeed counted as his friend.

    “Why can't you let him go?” T’Challa moves next to him, leaning on the banister in a prouder reflection of Steve’s own slump. “Let him choose this. Let him choose the path of his own life for once.”

Steve shakes his head. “I can't.”

    “Why not?”

    “I just … can't.”

    “He is your friend. Let him go.”

Steve sighs and allows his head to fall forward. “Yes, I suppose he is…”

    “You suppose?”

    “It’s so ridiculous and so, so terribly generic, and I shouldn't, but… I'm in love with him, I suppose. For … Oh, I don't know, for  _ ever _ . And I know he doesn't feel the same way and I'm not… I’m not bitter about that, I just want to keep him with me, nothing more.”

T’Challa sighs then, but he sounds annoyed rather than pitiful.

    “Not talking to each other is what brought us to this point. If he truly is your friend, and you are truly his, your friendship will persevere. He deserves to have you tell him the truth.”

Steve groans and buries his face in his hands. “It's not that easy.”

    “You are the one making it hard, Captain.”

    “Your Highness, if I may talk to you in private for a moment.” The doctor is back and Steve swears silently he won't ask what Bucky told her, won't pry into something his friend doesn't want to divulge, because T’Challa is right: Bucky needs to be given every freedom possible, just to make up for decades of not having any and simply because it's the right thing to do.

When had it gotten so difficult to know what right and wrong are, though? Probably when he'd gotten so terribly selfish, Steve thinks and smiles bitterly. Of course it's Bucky's own decision and he shouldn't take that choice away from his friend. It was Steve’s holier-than-thou attitude that had made him forsake his friendship with Tony, after all, and he can't afford to lose Bucky like he has lost Tony.

    “Captain.” T’Challa is back, and Steve doesn't really want to know what the king could possibly have heard from the doctor that's worthwhile telling, that would make a difference in Bucky going under again. 

Nevertheless, he turns around and there's something about the way the other man smiles almost gladly that makes Steve want to snap at him, but there’s nothing of that sort that the empty shell that he is could dish out, nothing left, not really. Not when he doesn't know what to do after the next ten minutes, where Bucky will willingly let himself be turned into an icicle again, and maybe that is actually a good idea, just sleep for ten, fifty, a hundred years and wake up to a different world, a new start. Except Steve can't do that. He will have to repent for his mistakes and try to fix whatever is left.

    “I think you should tell your friend about how you feel. I have … You could say I have reason to believe that he will change his mind if you tell him.”

And there it is again, that little hopeful fluttering in his chest that's always,  _ always  _ coming back to haunt him when he needs it least because there's no way, no way Bucky would … Bucky would …

    “He loves you,” the doctor says bluntly. “But of course he doesn't believe you feel the same way, so go in there and kiss him before he climbs into the cryo tube himself. And try not to behave like you're in a generic rom com.”

    “He -- what?!” God, the butterflies in his stomach are  _ bad _ now.

    “ _ Go, _ ” she urges, and that's all Steve needs to hear.

Belatedly, he realizes that maybe literally running through the glass sliding doors just because they were opening too slowly wasn't the best choice he could have made.

Bucky's head snaps up in alarm and there's a terrifying moment where it looks like he's going to attack - or rather, defend himself - before he realizes that it's Steve.

Steve, who launches himself at his friend and kisses him hard enough to make their teeth clack together. Bucky's bangs brush against Steve's face for a moment and it’s … Odd, to say the least, to have another person so far up in his personal space like that, to smell them and feel their warmth.

Bucky's lower lip is somewhere between Steve's, so he tugs a bit and finally lets it go, clumsily keeping their mouths pressed together, breathing each other's air. He's grabbing Bucky's shoulders and undershirt, weirdly holding onto him as to not fall over and probably face-plant Bucky's lap.

It takes him a couple seconds to realize that no, Bucky's not fighting him, but he certainly isn't kissing back either, having gone completely rigid as soon as Steve pounced on him.

    “Hi,” Steve breathes literally an inch from his face, blush already spreading and seriously?? Is this the only thing he can say after actually just assaulting his friend? Admittedly, it was with his lips, but the point still stands.

Bucky is staring right at him ((because where else  _ could _ he look?)) and he doesn't look amused. Or even pleased. In fact he looks like he's about to throw Steve into the next wall.

The cryo tube splinters underneath the impact of nearly two hundred pounds of completely unprepared super soldier. Steve's had worse. He's had far worse even before the serum, and while it's painful, it's not so bad he can't get up again.

What's bad though is the look in Bucky's eyes.

    “This isn't funny,” he says lowly, not even angry, just … Sad, and confused, stance sturdy out of habit, arm hanging limply at his side.

    “Buck,” Steve begins carefully, brushing broken glass from the back of his pants.

    “No.” Bucky's voice is darker than usual. He sounds broken. “You can't just pretend, Steve. No matter how much you want to save me, you can't just pretend you want this … This  _ thing _ , too. There's no way in hell you do. This isn't … Steve, come on! This isn't  _ natural _ and it's not okay. And don't pretend you want this, it's not gonna work.”

Steve has thought about how this conversation might go a hundred million times, has imagined a thousand angry rejections and twice as many teary declarations of love, but he still doesn't know what to say now.

    “I love you,” he finally offers, helplessly. “I just, I never thought you'd ever feel the same way, so I never said anything, and I wouldn't ever have said anything because you're my friend, Buck, I love you, but you're also my best friend and if I could keep that friendship but never be in a romantic relationship with you then I'd rather have that than ruin everything between us forever.”

Bucky stares at him, unblinking, skin waxy in the bright fluorescent lights of the eerily sterile looking hospital wing, the same it probably is everywhere in the world, white walls, white floors, white cots, light grey steel, glaring lights. He looks oddly good though, and Steve lets himself appreciate his friend in a purely physical way, because, well. Bucky is what they would probably call ‘hot’ nowadays, even though he is definitely missing an arm. But the long hair (that Steve is totally not wanting to play with) and the dark stubble and the lips that are eternally pouting, and then there are Bucky's shoulders and his neck and his collarbones and his biceps and the small peaks of his nipples under the shirt and -

Steve swallows and averts his eyes, stares at the broken glass at his feet instead and waits for a response. 

    “So you love me.”

    “Yeah, Buck, I do.”

Bucky nods, relaxing his stance and exhaling.

    “So was that … Your first kiss since Elsie Warren in second grade?” The ghost of a smirk plays around Bucky's lips.

    “Don't be stupid! I've kissed other people!” Steve can feel his face burning with embarrassment. He'd almost forgotten about Elsie, until right now.

    “Who?”

    “Um. Peggy. And, and Natasha.”

    “Natasha? The um, the psychic girl?”

    “No, the one with red hair. Why?”

    “C’mere, Stevie,” Bucky beckons, reaching out for him, and Steve immediately comes over, glass crunching under his feet and a lone broken metal pipe rolling over the floor in a series of  _ clonks.  _ As soon as Steve's within an arm’s reach, Bucky snatches his collar and drags him in, pressing their lips together again, with far more finesse than Steve, and the butterflies are back in full force. Steve can feel his knees go weak and he immediately grabs hold of Bucky, fingertips meeting soft warm skin, and closes his eyes against the weird, unfamiliar but incredibly exhilarating feeling. And yet it’s Bucky, still very much Bucky and in a way it’s exactly how Steve imagined it. And yeah, Bucky smells amazing.

The grip around his collar loosens and then Bucky pushes him away (and yes, there’s a part of Steve that wants to cry out at the loss of contact, because after all these years, and after all that’s happened he doesn’t want to let go of Bucky, ever).

Bucky chuckles lowly. “You’ve got a bit of catching up to do, Stevie.”

     “Yeah, well…” There has to be something, some stupid pretend-witty retort he can dish out to make them both laugh. “You need a shower,” Steve finally blurts out and Bucky snorts, putting more distance between them and letting go of Steve completely to tug at the tips of his hair.

    “At least I trimmed it. But shampoo is fucking expensive if you can only work illegally.”

    “You used to shoplift stuff like that. Soap, on occasion. Usually cigarettes.” There are so many fond memories linked with Bucky smoking, even though Sarah had told him off often enough, back when she was still alive.

There’s that pained look back in Bucky’s eyes before he averts them, his lips pressed together tightly.

    “I don’t do that anymore,” he says, slumping a bit. 

    “Come on,” Steve says gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up and then we’ll put some food into you.”

    “Steve…” Bucky shakes his head. “You don’t have to. You don’t have to do any of this. It’s not - I’m not worth that.”

    “Yeah you are. I’m with ya, Buck. ‘Til the end of the line. Always. Now come on. King T’Challa says he’s gonna let us stay here for a while, and we’ve got a room and all. It's gonna be alright, I promise.”


End file.
